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samoyed

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
15,191
hypothetically, if someone answered "i comprehend your question and see how it fits into the broader context of gender constructedness, but no, i would not date a mtf transgender person." then they're still progressive in your eyes?
If they can construct a strong argument for their position, sure. I'd be really interested in seeing a progressive philosophy that encompasses trans rights but still Others them without somehow marginalizing them. Would be quite the feat of philosophy.
 

Raven117

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,112
You need to be able to understand and process the question and see how it fits into the broader context of gender constructedness.

It's a question of innate ability to grapple with difficult questions and general mindfulness, and not a yes/no thing.

Only then can I even consider that you might be a genuine progressive and most people on this board would fail that test, as the last trans dating thread has shown, and ones we've had before on GAF.
I know what you are saying from your previous post about not understanding what a progressive is, the whole notion of gate-keeping and purity tests is really a toxic concept that does less to help the cause.(Maybe I really misread the tone of your post).
 

Rampage

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,135
Metro Detriot
This is actually a great idea.

No it is not. It is the opposite of what a "progressives" should do. It is what backward conservatives do- separate the men from "the females", as if they are a difference species that cannot be understood by "normal" huMAN social norms, hence have to be put in their own private box.

Instead of confronted and dealing with a segment of men on this board being toxic to women and minorities, it would create a safe space for those men to continue to be toxic. It would make an easier target for stalkers, to see all the female names in one place. Might as well as go back to the other board in no one is going to make the effort to be progressive and inclusive.
 

Antrax

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,272
Era is a very typical brogressive bubble. Progressivism is just a vehicle for people here to shit on religious and social conservatives, not to help the weak and marginalised, which is the backbone of progressivism

This. Women and people of color can get railroaded by employers or cops and you'll get barely a peep, if not outright defense ("I'm a liberal but...").

Tell them about some loot boxes with video game skins in them though, and they'll act like the company killed their parents
 

Border

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
14,859
They would be back to shit up the next thread instantly.
It's not as if there's instantly a "next thread" though.....how many additional other threads on the use of the word "female" have there been? Thread bans would just be an extension of the WARNING system already in place, and slowly you'd be building enough documentation to justify a permaban if bad behavior continues.
 

Liljagare

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
616
Ok, now explain the meaning of Brogressive to someone that has high english as a third language, and is not familiar with the slangs of other nations.

To me, it sounds very much like something belonging to a high school fraternity, thusly, probarly a bad a thing.
 
Oct 26, 2017
8,055
Appalachia
Firstly, I agree with OP's concerns and have appreciated the viewpoints she and other women of ERA have the courage to bring up.

Secondly, I have some thoughts on the nature of bans based on some of the discussion I have read here.

I think bans, like many other forms of punishment, are most effective when also followed-up with concise explanations to the offending party of specifically why the behaviour was unacceptable, how it is harmful, who it affects, etc. in an effort to provide a path for education and growth.

It's far too easy and far too common for people to just wait out a ban and never practice any self-reflection, continuing the same old behaviours as soon as they're allowed back in. So for me, a ban on its own as a punishment functionally serves to either give members a moment to cool off (considering they are only in a heated argument and not engaging in harmful behaviour), or to remove a harmful individual from the community. And I'm fine with both of those uses, but if we wish to look at bans as more than that - if we want to frame them as an opportunity for posters to grow and come back as better members of the community - I'd argue it's imperative that the team here provides that pathway in some fashion when the punishment is given or as a requirement to coming back.

I don't know if that's already a thing, or how that would logistically work, but in my experience if any site is to maintain and improve its standing as an open and welcoming platform for minorities/marginalized folks, something like this is beneficial. Especially on a platform with as varied and diverse a user-base as ERA.
 

Huey

Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,179
Agreed - I honestly think the forum just needs more women who will call out bullshit. You can't say a lot of this nonsense in real life because of the natural social regulation of equal proportions of women, and I think it would go a long way to helping here. I really get the sense there's very few women here ... but definitely a whoooole lot of dudes with women as their avatars :|

Having said that, thank god we're not on reddit or neogaf, the latter has fully devolved into an alt-right shithole.
 

Mahonay

Member
Oct 25, 2017
33,316
Pencils Vania
No it is not. It is the opposite of what a "progressive" should do. It is backward conservatives do- separate the men from "the females, as if they are a difference species that cannot be understood by "normal" male social norms, hence have to be put in their own private box.

Instead of confronted and dealing with a segment of men on this board being toxic to women and minorities, it would create a safe space for those men to continue to be toxic. Might as well as go back to the other board in no one is going to make the effort to be progressive and inclusive.
There needs to be some kind of automated feature where whenever a member decides to be a misogynistic/transphobic shit head they get locked out of the main forum and instantly moved into the quarantine forum, AKA LittleBoyEra.

We can make that happen can't we?
 

Deleted member 9237

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
1,789
but if I ask them "would you marry a MtF trans woman, why or why not?" they likely wouldn't be able to explain or really elucidate on their feelings, or maybe never even grappled with the question. Not saying that a person must be willing to date/marry transwomen to be progressive, but that this is one of the central ideas of gender non-binariness and if you can't even comprehend that how can you really call yourself a progressive? You didn't do the legwork.
If you ask someone if they're progressive they're not going to look up a dictionary definition of the term. People have an innate understanding of what it means, even if that understanding differs from person to person. Furthermore, someone could consider themselves progressive when asked without spending their days thinking about / engaging in gender / identity politics. You can't expect everyone to care about the same issues. Maybe I care about climate / ecology issues more than anything else and would judge how progressive someone is based on their stance in those topics.

Anyway, in my personal view this forum is progressive, both by internet community standards as well as real life standards. I don't think it needs harsher moderation.
 

Deleted member 9100

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
3,076
The thread about Trevor Noah's racist comments about aboriginals was eye opening.

Tons of posters who had never heard of aboriginals before or knew about the horrible treatment of their community, but still felt the need to come in and defend Trevor with single sentence posts like "not racist".

Then there were the posters who called it a plot by neo nazis and the alt right despite being brought up by the aboriginal community ahead of Trevor's upcoming tour.

No warnings and of course no bans despite mods actively posting in the thread.
 

samoyed

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
15,191
Ok, now explain the meaning of Brogressive to someone that has high english as a third language, and is not familiar with the slangs of other nations.

To me, it sounds very much like something belonging to a high school fraternity, thusly, probarly a bad a thing.
It's a portmanteau (a word that joins two other words) of "bro" and "progressive", to indicate a shallow, surface level progressiveness that, while useful on the election ballot (if they even vote!), is not very substantial per se.

The use of "bro" is intentional for the very thing you describe, because "bro" is associated with juvenileness and naivete.

See also, BernieBro, techbro.
 

Cocaloch

Banned
Nov 6, 2017
4,562
Where the Fenians Sleep
Ok, now explain the meaning of Brogressive to someone that has high english as a third language, and is not familiar with the slangs of other nations.

To me, it sounds very much like something belonging to a high school fraternity, thusly, probarly a bad a thing.

I would begin by not calling English dialects (RP?) "high English." And yes, the person is using the word as a pejorative.
 
Oct 25, 2017
4,293
If they can construct a strong argument for their position, sure. I'd be really interested in seeing a progressive philosophy that encompasses trans rights but still Others them without somehow marginalizing them. Would be quite the feat of philosophy.

Meh, somewhat off-topic but this is an issue that often comes up in my social circle. I don't think it's reasonable to expect that people's political opinions and activism needs to line up with their personal sexuality. That is NOT meant to excuse othering trans folks and whenever this issue comes up I demand that people acknowledge that that is in fact what they are doing and that they need to wrestle with that fact and how they decide to deal with it in practice. Still, I do think it's reasonable to have a mental disconnect between attraction to someone over deeply seated bigotry one can't detach from themselves emotionally and having done so intellectually and putting it in practice politically, as long as the same person is sensitive and tactful in expressing this - as much as one possibly could be when it is, after all, rooted in emotional bigotry no matter where it comes from. Now, in regards to what people who've grown up with a heteronormative traditional background can do to develop themselves around this issue emotionally, I think there is a much bigger debate to be had.

Please PM me (or create a thread if you are so inclinced) if you want to discuss this further as I'm quite interested in reflecting further upon this issue but don't feel like derailing this thread with an only slightly related tangent.
 

Oligarchenemy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,332
I seem to remember that just a few weeks ago we had a bunch of people telling everyone else that their protests need to be civil.

This forum has a huge problem with these fake ass progressives.
 

Pekola

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,507
Should rules be added? Things like posting etiquette and what's expected of a member?

That way, when someone comes in with low quality posting, people can simply point out the rule and have them ejected.

As a start:

- Don't belittle or deny the experiences of women and minorities.
 

Laiza

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,170
Anyway, in my personal view this forum is progressive, both by internet community standards as well as real life standards. I don't think it needs harsher moderation.
Your opinion is completely meaningless.

When the minorities are constantly walking out of the forum for its lack of moderation, that says enough.
 

Cenauru

Dragon Girl Supremacy
Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,944
You can engage them in debate and take a staunch stance against them spreading their bullshit, especially when it's not overtly bannable. Even if they are unwilling to listen and you have zero chance of changing their mind, always remember that there are plenty of people passively lurking and just reading different opinions without expressing their own. You can always reach these people and I would argue that they are a lot more important than reaching the dumbass posting the dumb shit you're replying to.

Anyway I don't mean this as any sort of attack on you or anything like that, just saying that we shouldn't be solely relying on moderation and that we can collectively take an inclusive stance on these issues by clearly showing that exclusionary language and behavior is unacceptable, if we genuinely believe it is (which I do.) That's all.
I never really considered that, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I can see how my post could have looked dismissive now, I'm sorry about that.
 

Deleted member 18347

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
2,572
What's actually been discussed in this thread
What I meant is that moderation in this thread is a good example of it being done on a level I believe is reasonable, allowing some room for different voices to be heard.

Which is why I think it's good as is.

As for the discussions themselves, I see some well thought out posts that generated some in here. Looking at your posts it seems you're more dismissive than engaging though, which defeats the purpose of it.

My take away from the OP is to try and be even more considerate. I acknowledge faults caused by toxic masculinity. From the day I signed on this forum until today I've been educated on and made aware of a few things.

But on the other hand saying something like this:

Any discussion of the struggles we faced is turned around so that it somehow becomes our fault
is hyperbolic generlization and not at all the sentiment of the majority I've seen in these threads. Disagreeing with some arguments is not putting women at fault. Of course there are a few posters that just spew their thoughtless bigoted drivel, but mods have done an excellent job handling those.
 

Liljagare

Banned
Oct 28, 2017
616
I would begin by not calling English dialects (RP?) "high English." And yes, the person is using the word as a pejorative.

For foreigners, it makes it a whole lot easier to actually understand what is written. And, high english, is what is taught in some countries, apart from american english.

You can also say British english or, American english.

I don't think too many people understand that when you pick it up as a third or fourth language, there are huge differences in slang and meaning of wording between the two.
 

Sanox

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,533
I feel the issue here is separate though, I skimmed the thread. 4 bans over 900+ posts. Remove the posts from those 4 people and the thread still has the same outcome. A great opening can always improve discussion but I don't feel like a thread title controls the direction of discussion so much that anytime this specific topic comes up it wouldn't end in lunacy if the opening just tried a little harder.

That type of topic is just hard for some people to accept. I don't think it's really deeper than that.

I guess so. I don't get why it is a topic some struggle with as more men being less emphatic isn't some crazy thing to say
 

Iva Demilcol

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,049
Iwatodai Dorm
While I consider myself progressive, I don't see why everybody on here has to prescribe to that. This is ultimately a gaming forum with an active off topic forum. Not everybody has to be progressive nor should they feel pressured to be. As long as everybody is respectful and discourse is never rude of hurtful I don't see the problem

I am the opposite: I don't consider myself particularly progressive and I often get scared of all the horrible regressive shit I get to read in here under the excuse of "being respectful".
 
Oct 25, 2017
4,293
I never really considered that, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I can see how my post could have looked dismissive now, I'm sorry about that.

Hey no problem, making someone come to a realization they hadn't previously considered is literally the best response I could ever hope for to one of my posts. Cheers!

It's not as if there's instantly a "next thread" though.....how many additional other threads on the use of the word "female" have there been? Thread bans would just be an extension of the WARNING system already in place, and slowly you'd be building enough documentation to justify a permaban if bad behavior continues.

Maybe there would be more threads on these issues if women didn't feel like shit for participating in them. It literally keeps coming up that women on this forum simply aren't comfortable taking part in debates because they get instantly shut down by men. Again, why are you more worried about the sanctity of keeping shitty men safe from bans than providing a safe platform for women to participate? That's a fucked up system of priorities, dude.
 

excelsiorlef

Bad Praxis
Member
Oct 25, 2017
73,316
is hyperbolic generlization and not at all the sentiment of the majority I've seen in these threads. Disagreeing with some arguments is not putting women at fault. Of course there are a few posters that just spew their thoughtless bigoted drivel, but mods

I mean several people quite literally argued that the only reason more didn't agree about the OP's request to not call women females is because she didn't write the OP the right way.
 

Gotdatmoney

Member
Oct 28, 2017
14,487
My issue with yall loving Brogressive is this idea that everyone has to be woke. Shit, it's fine if people have surface level knowledge and ideals if it's going to guide them to a positive discourse. It's like we want people to front some next level knowledge. Sometimes shit just isn't that deep to people, that's fine. Thousands of people post here on the pure basis that "it's a gaming site and oh they have other topics". The forum wasn't founded to be pHD discussion. If the "Brogressiveness" is such a negative, I don't know why some of yall are even here. Real talk.
 

Addleburg

The Fallen
Nov 16, 2017
5,062
This. Women and people of color can get railroaded by employers or cops and you'll get barely a peep, if not outright defense ("I'm a liberal but...").

Tell them about some loot boxes with video game skins in them though, and they'll act like the company killed their parents

I don't feel like this is a fair comparison as the gaming side always skews less progressive than the OT.

Not gonna speak for others, but I also find that I'm less inclined to post in threads where there's not much of an appropriate response to offer besides expressing how shocking a bit of news is.

People of color have and continue to be marginalized in the US and subject to biased treatment by the police. But I don't feel compelled to express how gobsmacked I am every time a thread is posted highlighting one of these instances.
 

Cocaloch

Banned
Nov 6, 2017
4,562
Where the Fenians Sleep
For foreigners, it makes it a whole lot easier to actually understand what is written. And, high english, is what is taught in some countries, apart from american english.

English speakers don't really call anything "high English," I'm telling you that you shouldn't use that phrase because it has a pretty bad connotation.

I don't think too many people understand that when you pick it up as a third or fourth language, there are huge differences in slang and meaning of wording between the two.

People do realize that. I'm telling you calling something "high English" should probably be avoided in English.
 

Laiza

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,170
No, we just disagree. That's sort of the point of expressing opinions you know.

What do you think a forum is for exactly?
What do you think this thread is for, exactly?

Because it's not to let the majority population tell us how the forum is perfectly fine and no changes are needed. Do you really think we don't know how you guys feel at this juncture?
 

RedMercury

Blue Venus
Member
Dec 24, 2017
17,649
I gotta say too people have to remember to report things and that mods aren't omnipresent.From what I can tell reports do get addressed in a very timely fashion, and any questions via PM about moderation as well. From my experience moderating other forums a lot of the time things don't get reported and then people get pissed that a user is still posting, between all the other stuff mods do it can be hard to keep track of things from the perspective of a regular user and being able to say "everyone knows this user isn't here in good faith", most mods may have no idea.
 

Deleted member 862

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,646

samoyed

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
15,191
I know what you are saying from your previous post about not understanding what a progressive is, the whole notion of gate-keeping and purity tests is really a toxic concept that does less to help the cause.(Maybe I really misread the tone of your post).
I'm trying not to gatekeep. The problem is, there has to be a certain standard of discourse and agreed upon axioms before a discussion can even take place, and on a forum like this, most people step into a thread to drop whatever take first comes to mind, and then the thread spends ages arguing "well what do you mean by this", "how do you define that", and I see this as what happens when the refusal to gatekeep sabotages your own purposes of educating others.

Too much gatekeeping, to the point where you can't even educate the uninformed is toxic, but so is an open door policy (too little gatekeeping). Most people aren't on a forum to get educated. That's fine. But don't make the environment hostile for people who're trying to discuss things.
 

Guppeth

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,805
Sheffield, UK
My issue with yall loving Brogressive is this idea that everyone has to be woke. Shit, it's fine if people have surface level knowledge and ideals if it's going to guide them to a positive discourse. It's like we want people to front some next level knowledge. Sometimes shit just isn't that deep to people, that's fine. Thousands of people post here on the pure basis that "it's a gaming site and oh they have other topics". The forum wasn't founded to be pHD discussion. If the "Brogressiveness" is such a negative, I don't know why some of yall are even here. Real talk.
The problem is when people have surface level knowledge but are certain they know everything.
 

tommy7154

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,370
User Banned (3 Days): Misrepresenting the arguments of others + straw man arguments
So you are literally complaining that the oppressors are not allowed to make threads further oppressing people who already feel unwelcome on this forum because of you. Classy.

It's not a double standard when the scales aren't even REMOTELY balanced. I hereby claim that it is your personal responsibility to literally solve sexism at least to the point where women don't need to feel afraid of expressing their opinions on this forum before you get to call this a double standard without being called out for it. OK?
No, I am not complaining that I can't and I think you know that. I am pointing out that there is a double standard and that's what I disagree with. Any double standard I will disagree with. And that's where my complaining stops. We could be talking about turtles right now and if I saw a double standard I would point it out as bs imo.

Aside from that I'm not going to argue with you as I absolutely do not want anyone to feel uncomfortable posting their opinions. I welcome you and your opinions even if I were to strongly disagree with them (and that's not the case in this instance) and I hope you'd do the same for me.

Basically my view on gender inequality is that women should speak up/stand up/be brought up as equals in every aspect of life and its absurd to me that this isn't already the case. It's absolutely ridiculous that it's even a thing. I just want women to stand up as opposed to pulling anyone else down. That's the best way to balance things imo.
 
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